Search results for " Brain function"
showing 10 items of 119 documents
Migraine and handedness.
2020
Migraine is a typically unilateral disorder in adulthood; however, the reasons for painful lateralization have been little investigated. The possible influence of manual dominance was suggested. We aimed to investigate the localization of pain in migraine attacks in right-handed and left-handed subjects. The retrospective study collected 546 patients with migraine aged between 16 and 65 years, reporting the manual dominance to the Edinburgh test. We included 466 right-handed and 80 left-handed subjects with migraine. We registered 4215 unilateral painful attacks. The right-handers had 3412 unilateral episodes; 62.8% of the attacks were characterized by pain on the right side and 37.2% by pa…
Improvement of phonemic fluency following leftward prism adaptation.
2021
AbstractAnatomo functional studies of prism adaptation (PA) have been shown to modulate a brain frontal-parieto-temporal network, increasing activation of this network in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the side of prism deviation. This effect raises the hypothesis that left prism adaptation, modulating frontal areas of the left hemisphere, could modify subjects’ performance on linguistic tasks that map on those areas. To test this hypothesis, 51 healthy subjects participated in experiments in which leftward or rightward prism adaptation were applied before the execution of a phonemic fluency task, i.e., a task with strict left hemispheric lateralization onto frontal areas. Results showed tha…
Using tools effectively despite defective hand posture: A single-case study.
2019
Apraxia, a cognitive disorder of motor control, can severely impair transitive actions (object-related) and may lead to action errors (e.g., rubbing a hammer on a nail instead of pounding it) and hand posture errors (e.g., grasping a tool in a wrong way). Here, we report a rare observation of a left-handed patient, left-lateralized for language, who developed a severe apraxia following a right brain lesion. Interestingly the patient showed a significant number of hand posture errors, while she perfectly demonstrated the actual use of tools. This case stressed the predictions made by the current theories of tool use. According to the manipulation-based approach, the hand posture errors shoul…
Musical training facilitates the neural discrimination of major versus minor chords in 13-year-old children
2012
Music practice since childhood affects the development of hearing skills. An important classification in Western music is the chords’ major-minor dichotomy. Its preattentive auditory discrimination was studied here using a mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm in 13-year-olds with active hobbies, music-related (music group) or other (control group). In a context of root major chords, root minor chords and inverted major chords were presented infrequently. The interval structure of inverted majors differs more from root majors than the interval structure of root minors. However, the identity of the chords is the same in inverted and root majors (major), but different in root minors. The deviant…
The Prefrontal Cortex and Neurological Impairments of Active Thought
2018
This article reviews the effects of lesions to the frontal cortex on the ability to carry out active thought, namely, to reason, think flexibly, produce strategies, and formulate and realize plans. We discuss how and why relevant neuropsychological studies should be carried out. The relationships between active thought and both intelligence and language are considered. The following basic processes necessary for effective active thought are reviewed: concentration, set switching, inhibiting potentiated responses, and monitoring and checking. Different forms of active thought are then addressed: abstraction, deduction, reasoning in well-structured and ill-structured problem spaces, novel st…
Prefix Stripping Re-Re-Revisited: MEG Investigations of Morphological Decomposition and Recomposition
2019
We revisit a long-standing question in the psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic literature on comprehending morphologically complex words: are prefixes and suffixes processed using the same cognitive mechanisms? Recent work using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) to uncover the dynamic temporal and spatial responses evoked by visually presented complex suffixed single words provide us with a comprehensive picture of morphological processing in the brain, from early, form-based decomposition, through lexical access, grammatically constrained recomposition, and semantic interpretation. In the present study, we find that MEG responses to prefixed words reveal interesting early differences in the la…
Spatial-temporal interactions in the human brain
2009
The review summarises current evidence on the cognitive mechanisms for the integration of spatial and temporal representations and of common brain structures to process the where and when of stimuli. Psychophysical experiments document the presence of spatially localised distortions of sub-second time intervals and suggest that visual events are timed by neural mechanisms that are spatially selective. On the other hand, experiments with supra-second intervals suggest that time could be represented on a mental time-line ordered from left-to-right, similar to what is reported for other ordered quantities, such as numbers. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological findings point towards the posterio…
The neural basis of sublexical speech and corresponding nonspeech processing: a combined EEG-MEG study.
2014
Abstract We addressed the neural organization of speech versus nonspeech sound processing by investigating preattentive cortical auditory processing of changes in five features of a consonant–vowel syllable (consonant, vowel, sound duration, frequency, and intensity) and their acoustically matched nonspeech counterparts in a simultaneous EEG–MEG recording of mismatch negativity (MMN/MMNm). Overall, speech–sound processing was enhanced compared to nonspeech sound processing. This effect was strongest for changes which affect word meaning (consonant, vowel, and vowel duration) in the left and for the vowel identity change in the right hemisphere also. Furthermore, in the right hemisphere, spe…
Selective proper name anomia in a patient with asymmetric cortical degeneration
1998
All cases of selective anomic deficit for proper names described until now are a consequence of focal cerebral lesions. In the present paper, we report the case of a patient, AF, with a deficient access to proper names of persons and normal access to common names probably subsumed by a degenerative process of the left cerebral hemisphere. MRI evidenced an atrophy of the left temporal lobe and SPECT highlighted hypoperfusion of the left hemisphere. Neuropsychological examination documented a deficient production of proper names belonging to famous personalities both on visual presentation and verbal definition. Moreover, on verbal fluency tasks, AF was poor for the categories of famous peopl…
From the Golgi-Cajal mapping to the transmitter-based characterization of the neuronal networks leading to two modes of brain communication: Wiring a…
2007
After Golgi-Cajal mapped neural circuits, the discovery and mapping of the central monoamine neurons opened up for a new understanding of interneuronal communication by indicating that another form of communication exists. For instance, it was found that dopamine may be released as a prolactin inhibitory factor from the median eminence, indicating an alternative mode of dopamine communication in the brain. Subsequently, the analysis of the locus coeruleus noradrenaline neurons demonstrated a novel type of lower brainstem neuron that monosynaptically and globally innervated the entire CNS. Furthermore, the ascending raphe serotonin neuron systems were found to globally innervate the forebrai…